> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://the-long-horizon.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # A committee calendar entry just became a brick in your estate plan. - URL: https://the-long-horizon.ghost.io/a-committee-calendar-entry-just-became-a-brick-in-your-estate-plan/ - Published: 2025-05-07T12:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2025-05-07T12:00:00.000Z - Description: A May 13 markup date decides whether a multimillion-dollar exemption gets locked in or left to expire. - Author: Jonathan Morgan - Tags: Long Horizon, #Import 2026-08-06 23:53 ## THE HORIZON The House Ways and Means Committee confirmed this week it will mark up its portion of the federal tax bill on May 13, 2025\. That is the event. That is a brick. It sits in the wall of the estate a builder is laying now, one legislative session at a time, whether he watches the committee schedule or not. The wall does not care about the news cycle around it. It only cares whether the brick gets set before the exemption it depends on expires. ## THE EVENT In the first days of May 2025, the House Ways and Means Committee confirmed a May 13 markup of its section of the budget reconciliation bill. Chairman Jason Smith of Missouri leads the committee drafting the tax title. The draft under discussion would make permanent the higher estate and gift tax exemption created by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That exemption was otherwise scheduled to fall by roughly half after 2025. Early versions discussed raising the exemption to $15 million per person starting in 2026\. The same draft would raise the cap on state and local tax deductions above its current $10,000 limit, with income-based phaseouts still under negotiation. Committee aides estimated the broader package would cost roughly $3.7 trillion over ten years. Full committee text was expected within days of the announced markup date. The committee also confirmed it was weighing changes to the child tax credit and to itemized deduction rules affecting charitable giving. Neither provision had been finalized as of the announcement. ## THE PATH The estate exemption is the clearest brick. Without action, the amount a builder can pass to heirs tax-free was set to fall from roughly $13.99 million per person back toward about $7 million after 2025. Permanence at a higher level changes years of planning at once. A builder with a business, a farm, or a real estate portfolio worth $10 million no longer needs to rush a trust or gifting strategy before December 31 to lock in the higher number. The SALT deduction cap is a second, separate brick with brokerage consequences. A builder in a high-tax state who itemizes gets more of his state tax back if the cap rises, freeing cash that can be redirected into a taxable brokerage account instead. A less obvious brick sits inside qualified small business stock. Draft provisions under discussion would expand the exclusion for gains on qualifying stock, a tool builders funding their own companies rarely use to its full extent. Under current law, gains on qualified small business stock held five years can be excluded up to $10 million or ten times basis, whichever is greater. A builder who capitalizes a new entity correctly from day one, rather than converting an existing LLC later, is the one positioned to use that exclusion at sale. Business capital owners face a fourth brick in the qualified business income deduction, the 20 percent pass-through break created in 2017\. Its scheduled expiration after 2025 has shaped how sole proprietors and partners pay themselves, and permanence changes salary-versus-distribution math going forward. A fifth brick touches brokerage accounts directly through capital gains treatment. Early drafts left long-term capital gains rates untouched at 0, 15, and 20 percent, meaning the brokerage side of a builder's plan may see less disruption than the estate and business side. A sixth brick sits inside retirement account strategy. A permanent, higher estate exemption reduces the incentive to rush large Roth conversions purely to reduce a future taxable estate, since fewer builders will face estate tax exposure at all. None of these bricks are set yet. Committee text can still change in markup, on the House floor, and again in the Senate before anything becomes law. ## THE WATCH Watch the May 13 committee markup itself, and whether the estate exemption figure and SALT cap survive intact. Amendments during markup routinely change both numbers. Watch the full House floor vote, expected before Memorial Day. Watch the Senate's own tax text after that, expected to differ from the House version in ways that matter for these same provisions. A builder now knows the wall he is building has a legislative deadline attached to it, measured in months rather than years. The next brick gets set, or discarded, on May 13. ### Sources DLA Piper, House Committee on Ways and Means proposed tax bill: key takeaways: [https://www.dlapiper.com/en-us/insights/publications/2025/05/house-committee-on-ways-and-means-proposed-tax-bill](https://www.dlapiper.com/en-us/insights/publications/2025/05/house-committee-on-ways-and-means-proposed-tax-bill?ref=the-long-horizon.ghost.io) EisnerAmper, House Ways and Means Releases Legislation Ahead of May 13 Mark-up: [https://www.eisneramper.com/insights/tax/ways-means-legislation-0525/](https://www.eisneramper.com/insights/tax/ways-means-legislation-0525/?ref=the-long-horizon.ghost.io)